


the sea through my fingers

by susiecarter



Category: Aquaman (2018), DC Extended Universe, Justice League (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, F/F, First Meetings, First Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 13:08:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20930738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: Mera is out of time.(AU: Mera is injured leaving Atlantis and trying to beat the tsunami to Maine, and washes up on the Metropolis-Gotham waterfront instead. And who should be performing search-and-rescue there in the aftermath of the disaster but Wonder Woman?)





	the sea through my fingers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GlassesOfJustice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassesOfJustice/gifts).

> I've been kicking around ideas for a fic about this pairing since the very first time I saw you request it, GlassesofJustice ... so in some sense this is just a super belated treat I've finally had the time to finish for you. :D I hope you enjoy it, and happy Giftbox!
> 
> Title from the poem "[The Sea Shell](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51021/the-sea-shell)" by Marin Sorescu.

Mera is out of time.

The wave's coming—the wave Orm is sending, all the power he can bring to bear unleashed, impossibly vast. The way the water is moving around her, drawn up into the heart of the wave, is like nothing she's ever felt, nothing she's ever had to swim through.

And she might have been able to do it anyway, with her power smoothing her way, the water lighting up blue and moving with her, if Orm's guards hadn't caught her leaving.

She's gone to see Arthur before, and Orm knows it. And of course he doesn't want her to get to Arthur, to warn him about the wave coming or about what Orm is doing. For all his many and varied flaws, Orm isn't stupid. Mera hasn't been able to convince Arthur to return to Atlantis, not yet. But Atlantis existing out there somewhere in theory with Orm ruling it isn't the same thing as Orm using his power to declare war on the surface world; and Arthur might not have believed her the first time she tried to tell him, but he'll believe it once this wave has struck.

She should have expected them. She should have known Orm would try to stop her.

He hadn't wanted her killed. Of course he hadn't—that would put his tentative alliance with Xebel in grave jeopardy. But she wasn't about to go quietly just because she'd been caught, so it was no surprise they'd used force.

She'd gotten away. But she's leaving clouds of blood in the water, blooming, muddying the clear blue glow of her power. And she's caught in the maw of the wave.

She can't tell where she is anymore, can't tell whether she's still swimming the right direction. She can't tell whether she's still swimming at all, whether it isn't just that the water's moving and she's in it. The power of the current, the pull of it piling up on itself as the wave builds and builds, is—it's the ocean itself, the whole of it, and it's so much stronger than she is—

She tries hard, as hard as she can, but it doesn't matter. She aches, her side and her shoulder throb mercilessly; she can taste it now, her own blood, every time she sucks in a fresh breath of water. The glow of her power is dimming—or maybe that's her eyes, her head, creeping darkness filling up her vision.

The wave is lifting her up, cresting. She—she must be close to the surface, then, she thinks dimly, close to shore. But the water is curling around her, rolling; she doesn't know where she is, doesn't know which way is up.

The only thing left to do is let the wave break.

She hurts.

That's the only thing that matters, at first. There's nothing else. The pain has filled her up, there's no _room_ for anything else. She can't see, she can't hear, she can't think. She hurts.

After a little while—or maybe a long while, or maybe no time at all—that changes. Just a little. She hurts, and—and she isn't moving, she realizes distantly. She feels weighed down, and she isn't moving. And that isn't what it's like in the ocean, not ever. Even a calm sea moves, full of ripples and flickers and tides.

She isn't in the water anymore.

She might have lain there drifting, hurting, for a long, long time, if she hadn't pieced together that thought—but she _isn't in the water_. She doesn't want to go to war with the surface, but that's not because she _likes_ it; it's for Xebel's own sake, Atlantis's, that she'd like to avoid drawing all the unfamiliar teeming mass of humanity down on them. She doesn't know much about the surface, and she doesn't especially want to. It's there, and it's where she needs to go because it's where Arthur is at least three-quarters of the time.

Except right now she's not where Arthur is. She didn't make it to—Maine, as he calls it. She's somewhere else, and she doesn't know where, and she's out of the water.

She makes a sound. Just a little one, rasping in her throat, but that hurts, too. She tries to move, but she's so clumsy like this, the air as strange and thin around her as ever, and the effort makes her injured side burn with agony that steals the breath from her. Usually she comes up on purpose; she's ready for it, braced to stride out of the sea and feel her skin go dry and prickling, feel the weight of her arms and her dripping hair and her whole self so abruptly unsupported. But like this—

She manages to pry one eye open, squinting, everything blurry and bewildering. She can hear _something_, but she doesn't know what it is: something rushing and rumbling, almost the sound of moving water and yet not the same at all. Piercing distant notes, the ugliest music she's ever heard. Voices.

Voices. Shouting. Not too close, not yet, but closer than she wants them to be. She needs to move, or they're going to find her. She can't let them find her—

"There's someone over here! We have to get this wall stabilized—"

"I will go," says another voice, firm and steady, and there's a scrape, a clang, the sound of shifting stone and quick, even footsteps.

And then there's someone there.

A woman, Mera realizes dimly. A woman with long dark hair, dark eyes as steady as her voice had been; and—armor? Mera's never seen anyone on the surface wearing anything that looks like that before.

The woman has crouched down beside her, face grave; and for all that she seems dressed for battle, her hands are careful, gentle, as she touches Mera's side, braces her, to examine her wound.

Mera makes a sound; she wanted it to be a word, but it isn't. She isn't even sure which word she meant it to be, whether she wanted to tell the woman to get away from her, to let her crawl back into the water, or—

Or whether she just wanted to ask the woman for her name.

"Hush, it's all right," the woman says softly. "I know your people, I know where you come from. I won't hurt you. You'll be safe here. All right?"

She knows? How can she? What does she mean? Even the surface-dwellers who pay attention, who know who Arthur is ever since he saved the world, don't know about the kingdoms beneath the sea—or at least they didn't, until the wave.

But there's no way to ask. The woman is saying something else now, but Mera—Mera can't understand it, can't grasp the words or their meanings, not before the darkness drags her down again.

She wakes somewhere else.

The pain is less overwhelming. That's the first thing she notices.

The place where she is is clean, well-lit. The surface beneath her is soft. Comfortable, or at least it would be if it weren't so dry, so relentlessly obviously not underwater. As it is, she tenses, helplessly aware that she is on the surface, that surface-dwellers have her; that she doesn't know what they want with her, what they'll do to her. Do they understand what that wave meant? Are they already preparing to take up arms?

She keeps her eyes three-quarters closed, and peers out from between her lashes. It doesn't look like Maine, doesn't look like where she was when the wave washed her up. She's—inside, inside one of their buildings.

Someone is in the room with her. And she has only a moment to realize that before there's movement, before they're reaching for her—

She twists, and ignores the shriek in her side, sharp tearing fire ripping its way along her ribs, to catch their wrist before their hand can touch her.

A man. An old man; and he's startled by the way she moved, by her grip on him, but he doesn't look angry. He doesn't try to pull away. He blinks and looks down at her, and says, "Ah. So you are awake, then."

He doesn't seem inclined to lunge. It's probably safe to risk looking away from his face, flickering a glance over his free arm, his clothes—but if he has a weapon, she can't see it.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he murmurs, and then pauses. "In fact, under normal circumstances I imagine I couldn't. As it stands, however, please rest assured that you are safe here."

Unlikely, she thinks. But she may as well pretend to believe him, for the moment.

She hasn't released her grip on his wrist; he looks pointedly down at her hand, and then at her. "I dressed your wounds," he says. "If I'd wanted to harm you, that would have been the opportune moment."

She glances down. She'd noticed there was a certain stiffness to her wounded side, her shoulder. It's the cloth he's used, the fastenings that are holding it down. A little scratchy, a little rough—but then he doesn't have the seaweed weave healers in Xebel would use to do the same job, smooth and wet and self-sealing, flexible. He wouldn't, up here. And considering that, he seems to have done reasonably well.

She lets go of him.

"Much obliged," he says, and inclines his head. "I am Alfred Pennyworth."

A cue. She chooses not to take it.

"And you are, of course, entitled to your silence," he allows, after a beat. "Though I must admit I'd appreciate it if you were willing to describe the weapon that was used on you. I've never seen energy burns quite like—"

Part of the wall opens. A door, Mera realizes; it just hadn't looked like one, the frame the same color as the rest of the wall, rectangular rather than arching.

"Ah, Master Wayne. What spectacular timing you have. Our guest is awake."

This man—Master Wayne—is younger. But only his face, Mera finds herself thinking. His eyes are old: weary, hard, where Alfred's were not.

"Indeed," Wayne says, and looks at her. Watches her, steady and unblinking. "Who are you? Or perhaps I should say—_what_ are you?"

Typical of the surface: ignorant, demanding, entitled. Mera looks very deliberately at him and then away, past him, at the wall.

"That wave dragged a lot of things up from the bottom of the ocean," Wayne presses, "but no one else like you. You were already close to shore, weren't you? You were going somewhere. Where?"

Mera glances at Alfred—only to demonstrate to Wayne that he doesn't have her attention, except she's almost startled into smiling. Alfred is wearing a sour, long-suffering expression, gazing up at the ceiling.

"What do you want? Where did you come from?"

"From the kingdoms under the sea."

The door—someone new is standing in it. Someone Mera knows. It's the woman, that woman from the shore.

She isn't wearing her armor anymore, or at least not all of it. She has her arms crossed over her chest, and she's looking at Wayne, her mouth a wry flat line.

"Which you know perfectly well," she adds, also aimed at Wayne. "She is one of Arthur's people—"

"You know Arthur?"

They all turn to look at Mera at once. She doesn't flinch from their attention. She keeps her chin high, and watches the woman steadily, and doesn't blink.

"Yes, we know Arthur," the woman says, and her tone is kind now, even and gentle, for Mera.

It had been—warmer, though, somehow, for Wayne.

"We fought at his side to defeat Steppenwolf, and to retrieve the mother boxes that had been stolen. From your people, and from mine."

Generous phrasing, is the first thing Mera thinks. Arthur hadn't wanted to end up in the middle of that—even if, once he had, he'd decided to throw himself at it full-tilt. _We fought at his side_, instead of _He fought at our side_, graciously gives him more of the credit than Mera suspects he had earned.

And then _from mine_. But she's a surface-dweller like the rest of them, isn't she? Even with her armor, her clear dark eyes, her strong hands—

"He told me of you," Mera admits aloud, and sinks back a little way into the soft thing that's holding her. Now that she has some reason to think they won't harm her—she can admit it had hurt, to hold herself at the ready. It's a relief to let herself relax.

She still isn't sure she trusts them, but then she doesn't have to. They did aid her, even if it was only because they'd guessed that Arthur might want them to. And wherever he is now, however far this place may be from Maine, they must know. They must be able to find him, and perhaps they can even be convinced to take her there.

"I'm sure he did," the woman murmurs, sounding amused, and then looks at Wayne again—rolls her eyes, and uncrosses her arms, the better to flap her hands at him insistently. "Enough, enough, go on. Call Arthur, tell him she has woken."

Alfred goes, with grace and without argument. Wayne is slower, pausing by the door to say in a low tone that Mera's nevertheless sure he intends her to hear, "She doesn't leave the grounds, Diana. You have to understand—"

"Because, of course, she is our guest," Diana says as if in agreement, pleasant but firm, "and will be welcome to stay here while she recovers, at least until she has the chance to speak with Arthur."

Wayne's jaw tightens; but only a little. He gives Diana a speaking, warning sort of glance. But there's a fondness in it, too, half-buried affection, that Mera hadn't expected.

Diana smiles at him with equal fondness, and raises her eyebrows, and gestures toward the door. And after a moment, Wayne concedes the point and goes.

"I apologize," she says to Mera, once the sound of Wayne's footsteps has faded. "Bruce is best-practiced at caring about things by assuming everything else in the world will do them harm and acting accordingly. It meant a great deal to him that Arthur came to his assistance against Steppenwolf, and I'm sure he had his guesses as to where you had come from the moment I brought you back here from the waterfront. I imagine—" She pauses, tilting her head, choosing her words with care before she speaks them. "I imagine he wished not to uncover answers that were mysteries to him, but to see what you would say and do when asked for them."

And of all the things Mera had never expected to have in common with a surface-dweller, and with Wayne in particular now that she has met him—she can't count the number of Father's ceremonial banquets she's spent pretending not to know anything about anything, waiting to see how many incautious things she can get the heads of noble houses to say in front of her.

"You have nothing to apologize for," she says aloud. "You—you are an Amazon, aren't you?"

She hadn't quite meant to say it, or at least not like that. But it's true. It must be. Mera was taught the old stories, when she was a girl; one of the mother boxes had been given to the Amazons. And the reason Wayne had wanted Arthur's help had been in order to prevent the third—the box given to humans—from falling into Steppenwolf's hands. If another had been taken by him, then, it had been the one guarded by the Amazons. _Stolen, from your people and from mine_—

"I am," Diana says, with a smile. "I am Diana of Themyscira, daughter of Hippolyta."

A princess, Mera thinks, and almost laughs. A princess, just like Mera. "I am Y'Mera Xebella Challa," she says, "princess of Xebel—but you may call me Mera."

She doesn't want to call herself her father's daughter, not right now; not when she has come this far, done this much, to undermine the king he would be ally to.

But if Diana notices the omission, or thinks anything of it, it doesn't show on her face.

"I would be honored," she says instead, and seats herself at Mera's side. "And the first thing you must know is that it will be some days yet before Arthur arrives. The wave that washed you up on our shores reached far and wide; Arthur's home, too, was wrecked by it, and his father has been gravely injured."

Mera bites her lip. She doesn't know Arthur's father, not really—and it pricks her with a sting of guilt that her first thought is how terrible that would be, not for Arthur, or for his father, but for Atlantis. He already blames Atlantis for the death of his mother. And if Orm has managed to kill his father, too? He will defeat Orm, certainly. He will defeat Orm, and then he will tear apart the very foundations of Atlantis, until no stone of it rests on any other, and leave it in ruins behind him.

"I understand he's likely to recover," Diana says, probably attributing the look that has crossed Mera's face to purer motives than Mera deserves. "But Arthur wishes to be sure of it, and to do what he can to help those who remain in need, before he leaves Maine to come here.

"I know you must have something of grave importance to discuss with him. I know where that wave must have come from, and—"

She stops, and an expression crosses her face then that Mera can't name.

"And you wouldn't have left your home at such a time otherwise," she says at last. "But whatever it is you need to do, it will be better if you are healed a little before you go and do it."

Which is true enough, even if Mera wishes it weren't. She's hardly been awake for any time at all, and she's already exhausted, digging deeper than she can afford with the effort it takes to move and talk and think about anything other than the pain in her side. She's not going to be able to get Arthur to do anything, like this.

"All right," she allows.

So she lies there, and she lets Diana inspect her bandages—fitted neatly within the rents those guards' weapons made in her scalesuit, since of course the surface-dwellers would have had no way to cut such a fabric, and wouldn't have understood how it fastened or how to remove it. Apparently she hadn't managed to reopen the wound too badly, twisting like that to grasp Alfred's arm, and according to Diana shows no signs of infection.

"You should rest," Diana concludes gently. "And I should leave you to it—unless there's anything else you need right now?"

Mera bites the inside of her cheek. It feels like a bad joke, under the circumstances, and she can't help wrinkling her nose; but it's also the truth. "Water," she says, helplessly.

And Diana grins down at her, bright as sunlight on sea, and laughs, and then goes to get her some.

It's almost always Diana, after that.

Wayne and Alfred are in and out, now and then—Alfred always with a smile and a careful inquiry as to her comfort; Wayne with a stern intent look, assessing, and never more than terse.

She knows there are others. Arthur told her of them. But if she had to venture a guess, the one named Barry Allen is kept very far away from anyone who needs rest and quiet. And the one named Victor Stone seems to stay away himself—when she ventures to ask Diana about him, Diana smiles, a little wry and a little sad, and shakes her head.

"He—has power he can't yet fully control. He wouldn't want to hurt you with it, and he doesn't know how to make sure he doesn't; the next best thing is to stay away."

So: it's almost always Diana.

And it's interesting, to be around Diana. Mera didn't know what to expect from surface-dwellers, never mind from an Amazon who lives by choice among them—Diana is so _strange_, so beautiful, so thoroughly unlike anyone else Mera has ever met. Underwater, there's Father, and of course Orm endeavors to outrank them all shortly; but with anyone else, Mera's rank always has and always will define her, and she never forgets it.

The surface-dwellers are cautious of Mera. In the sea, she's a princess. But Diana knows where she comes from, knows her people, and wouldn't have anything to fear even if she didn't; and she's a princess too.

Late on the second day, when Diana's changing Mera's bandages, Mera observes as much aloud, and Diana grins down at her, hands briefly still against Mera's wounded shoulder.

"It's true," she agrees, and then adds, "And I remember what it was like, too, learning the ways of humans. Their world can be bewildering even when you've lived all your life on land. The food, the clothes, the way they fight and the things they think. And of course there are so many of them, and their world is so large—but then I suppose that won't surprise you the way it surprised me."

Mera blinks. If anything, she's always thought it was one of the things that made surface self-importance so inexplicable—that they thought so much of themselves and their own ways, when they took up only a third of a world that had so much ocean.

Diana sees the look that must be on her face, and laughs. "For a very long time," she admits, rueful, "my world was an island. An island I knew from one end to the other, and I had seen every part of it, and the water stretched out around it in every direction, and that was all there was. My mother told me stories of the world of humans, of course, but—it wasn't real to me. Not like the world I saw around me every day.

"It's one of the things I still don't entirely understand about them. There are so many of them, and they live in so many different places and do so many different things, and yet they still have all these _rules_ about how to act and what to say. When it's all right to do something, and when it isn't. Where to look, how to talk, when to touch. They don't even agree on any of it, but it's so important to them that they can't stop arguing about it. They make so many things complicated that should be simple—their nations, their _money_, their lives. Even love, with their," and she waves a hand, "marriages—"

Mera looks away. Of all the things to discover she has in common with surface-dwellers, she thinks, distantly amused. "Well," she hears herself say, "in that, they're more like my people than like yours, perhaps."

She feels suddenly strangely aware of everything: of where she is looking in the room, and where Diana is, and that Diana is probably looking at her; of Diana's hands against her shoulder, her side—moving, careful and gentle, to tend to her hurts, and she doesn't know why that thought should make her throat ache.

It must be the air, that's all. She hasn't breathed air for so long in some time.

The silence stretches.

"I don't know as much about your people as I should," Diana says at last, soft. "Tell me. Tell me, if you like."

"I—" Mera bites her lip. It isn't that she'd like to; it's that there's no one else she can say this to, and there probably never will be, and the thought of leaving it trapped inside herself forever has become abruptly unbearable, now that there is Diana. Diana, and her warm dark eyes, those strong hands—the way she listens, the way she laughs. "I am promised to Orm."

"Orm," Diana repeats, gentle.

"Arthur's half-brother. He is king in Atlantis. The wave—"

Diana's gaze clears, comprehending. "He sent it. That's why you came to find Arthur."

"Yes," Mera admits. "He needed an alliance with my father, and my father agreed that we should be betrothed. He means to conquer all the kingdoms of the sea—if he couldn't do it this way, he would only try another, and Xebel might not survive it. It's my responsibility to do this for my people—"

She's speaking too quickly, the words all running together in her mouth; her breath is coming too fast, too hard, and her side throbs with it. She wants so much to explain it, that's all—to have Diana grasp this, to understand what she's doing and why and tell her so. To know that Diana doesn't consider her foolish or backwards or without a mind of her own, doesn't think less of her for this thing that's apparently so incomprehensible to Amazons.

For a moment, she almost wishes she hadn't said anything at all. There's no reason it should make so great a difference, that Diana knows Mera is about to marry, and yet she can't shake the fear that she's misstepped somehow, ruined something she can't even define.

But when Diana does speak at last, the first thing she says is, "You must do what you think is right." Her eyes are lowered; she's smoothing the edge of a bandage down slowly. "I know what it is to choose to do your duty because you feel you must—because it's so essential to who you have decided to be and to what matters to you that you can't imagine doing anything less." And then she does look at Mera, and smiles just a little, small and soft and lopsided. "This is the same, I think, for Amazons and for your people, and for humans, too."

Mera swallows. "So Amazons don't—you don't—"

She doesn't even know what word to use; lucky—maybe—that Diana seems to take her meaning anyway, that small soft smile widening, slanting, suddenly a little wicked. "Oh, we do," Diana murmurs. "We just don't marry before we do it."

"But you," Mera says, and then stops again. Her face feels hot. "You must—there must be a way to—"

Diana shrugs a shoulder, graceful, artless. "There aren't so many of us. I think that makes it easier. We all know. Who's taken a liking, who has their heart set. We make promises, when we feel the need, and celebrate with each other when those promises are declared." Her hands are still moving, fingertips warm where they skim Mera's skin just beneath the open edges of the scalesuit. "It's—simpler, that's all."

Simpler, Mera thinks. What wouldn't she give for simpler? Simpler than all this mess with Orm, with Arthur, kings and thrones and tridents; simpler than the many rules that bind her—than the knowledge that unless something changes a great deal very soon, only one person will be permitted to touch her for all the rest of her life, and it will be a man she no longer likes and cannot love.

"I should let you rest," Diana says quietly, and stands.

But before she can leave, Mera finds herself reaching out—catching Diana's hand for a moment in hers, so that Diana turns and looks back at her; and in that instant, as their eyes meet, something passes over Diana's face that makes Mera's heart pound.

It takes Mera until the fourth day to give in.

Wayne has managed to contact Arthur after all; his father will be well, and he intends to arrive here by tomorrow. Which means Mera must be ready to convince him of what he must do, and ready to go with him and make sure he does it—except her bandages still come away bloody more often than not, and the pain is greater than it should be.

She'd expected it to need to stay a secret, but—

But she hadn't known there would be Diana.

So, on the fourth day, she explains.

"I hoped that drinking so much water would be enough," she adds, because Diana has brought her a glass every time she's asked, and she's asked many times. "But it wasn't. It isn't the same. It doesn't hurt me to be out of the ocean this long—but it makes me weaker, and—"

"And you were already injured," Diana says for her, immediate. "Of course, of course. Don't worry, it will be no trouble at all. We aren't far from the waterfront."

"But—Wayne said I wasn't allowed to leave this place," Mera says uncertainly.

Diana grins at her, eyes bright. "I don't see why it should be up to him," she murmurs.

So Mera draws together the edges of her scalesuit over her wounds, and seals it closed; and then Diana lifts her from her bed, and they leave the Hall of Justice behind.

Mera can stand—but Diana can move through the air like Mera moves through water. So Mera grips Diana's shoulder, curls a tentative hand around the nape of her neck, and relaxes into Diana's arms. And Diana carries her, and runs.

It's late afternoon, the sun reflecting almost as brilliantly from the buildings in the city as from the water. And they don't need to go through the city to reach the ocean; like this, from a distance, Mera can concede that it's almost lovely.

But the shore where Diana has brought her is lovelier. A rocky little beach, a spit of land that tumbles precipitously down into the water, but after four days in that dry little room, drinking and drinking and drinking, pouring half a glass on herself as soon as the door closed behind Diana—Mera feels like she's never seen anything so beautiful.

Diana leans down, sets her gently on her feet and steadies her with a hand spread wide just below her shoulder blades. Mera closes her eyes and turns her face into the breeze off the sea, breathes in the smell of it, and feels a knot that had been tying itself tighter and tighter in her chest start to unravel.

"Here," Diana says, low, and takes her by the hand, and together they walk out to the furthest edge of rock overhanging the shore below—from there, looking down, it's nothing but water. Mera looks at her: and Diana, too, has paused, closed her eyes and tipped her head back, as if it's enough just to exist in a place where the sea is.

Mera hadn't thought she'd understand—

"Themyscira had beaches," Diana murmurs, and oh. Oh, of course. Of course she understands. "Beaches, and shores, and cliffs of pale stone. I loved those cliffs—I loved to climb them, and stand at the edges of them to feel the wind and the sun on my face. And I loved to dive from them."

She opens her eyes again, then, and looks at Mera, and smiles, that bright smile that makes her eyes bright too, makes the corners of them crinkle up warmly. She's still holding Mera's hand in hers.

"But of course your side—"

"Shut up," Mera says instantly, and laughs—pulls her further still, and then, together, they jump.

It does hurt. But only a little; and crashing into the water together, the splash and surge of the sea around them, and Diana's delighted shout in her ears, make it feel like less than nothing.

And the _water_, oh. Just feeling it against her skin at last, sinking down into it, all her grace and lightness returned to her—it's rippling around her with bright blue light before she even means to reach for it, her power flaring out of her in delight. She turns in the current, dives further still, and maybe it's only wishful thinking, her own gladness at being in the water again, but she thinks her side and shoulder have already started to hurt less, the sharp throb traded for a gentler ache that doesn't stab half so deep.

It's as if it's all washing off her: the pain, the fear, the tension; the uncertainty, being trapped on the surface somewhere so far from Arthur, and the weight of all that still waits for her. And she floats there with her eyes closed, and lets it all go.

And then remembers, belated, to look for Diana.

She doesn't know what she'd expected, but it isn't for Diana to be right there, barely a stroke's length away and swimming closer, just coming to a stop. A human would have had trouble following Mera so deep so fast—but of course Diana is strong and fast, and may not even need to breathe.

Diana grins at her, bright and warm even underwater. She's wearing human clothes, a blouse, a skirt that's tight and close all the way to the knee. Nothing fit to swim in, but it doesn't stop her from twisting, kicking away from Mera in a pointed little flurry of bubbles, looking back over her shoulder with her long braid streaming.

And that's how they end up—racing.

Of all the simple things in the world, one of the simplest. But it's been so long since Mera swam for _fun_. Not to get anywhere, not to save her own life or others, not because her duty lay somewhere ahead of her. Just to enjoy it, the water and herself, her own strength and speed; just for the pleasure of it. 

And that's what gets the better of her, in the end. That feeling, swelling in her like a wave, that pleasure and delight, the bittersweet awareness that it's been so rare, gratitude and warmth and giddy elation flooding her heart like high tide.

She's almost caught up to Diana—reaches out and grasps her bare ankle, tugs, and Diana's laugh is silent in the water, throat not made to work with it like Mera's, but the way she throws her head back sends her braid rippling back. She is so beautiful, Mera thinks, and there's something sharp in the thought, something close to pain. Mera kicks once, hard, and then can grasp Diana by the waist—can settle a hand against her face—can kiss her.

The water around them is cool, dark. Diana's mouth is warm, generous; slack at first with surprise, but Mera can't bring herself to let go so soon—and then all at once it isn't anymore, and Diana is moving against her in the water, has caught her by the shoulder and slid a hand into her hair and is kissing her back.

Deep, hard as riptide, and it feels just as impossible that Mera should be able to tear herself loose, but—

But this can't happen, she thinks distantly, suddenly cold. This can't happen. She shouldn't have done it.

She breaks away, covers her mouth with her hand and fills the water with blue light; lifting herself up, carrying herself away. Like that, it takes only moments to surface. And she breathes air as easily as water, but for some reason when she comes up she is gasping for it.

She twists away from where Diana's head is about to break the surface just in time. She feels like she—she can't look at Diana, or she'll do it again, and she shouldn't. She can't.

"Mera," Diana says, cautious, gentle.

Mera bites her lip, hard, and doesn't turn around, doesn't answer. She feels like she's on the edge of a cliff all over again, and oh, there's nothing more she wants than to be in the water.

But there isn't any going back from this. Is there? Even if Orm never finds out, _she'll_ know. And how is she supposed to bear it, having this and then losing it the moment it's over? Except she wants it anyway. She _wants_ it, something that's just for herself; something she did because she chose to, that can't be undone or taken away from her whether she's thrown in the Trench for it or not.

She turns around.

Diana is looking at her. Treading water, waiting; watching her, with those steady dark eyes, her wet dripping hair plastered to her forehead and temple and cheek, her mouth—

Her mouth red, sore-looking, from kissing.

"Diana," Mera says unevenly, and kicks hard, comes up against her with a little rush of water and kisses her again.

But this time Diana only lets her—holds still beneath it, or at least as still as the ocean around them will allow, and touches Mera's cheek with the backs of two knuckles.

"Mera," she says again, very soft, when Mera has released her. "I don't want you to do anything you will need to regret."

Mera shakes her head; she almost wants to laugh, but it would come out sharper, more wild, than it should. If only she thought she would—if only she could trust herself to regret this, instead of savoring it, treasuring it. "I won't," she says aloud. "I won't. Diana—please. Please."

And that makes Diana's gaze turn darker still, makes her drift closer still. Her fingers skim up, now, catch in Mera's wet hair and smooth their way through it, and then along the line of Mera's face. Her cheek, her jaw. Her mouth.

"You are so lovely," she says, low, and smiles just a little. "I felt so foolish for it, but—but that was the first thing I thought, when I saw you lying there injured amid the rubble on the waterfront. How lovely you were. And only after, how stupid I was for thinking it when you needed help and you were bleeding everywhere."

Mera does laugh, then, quiet and unsteady. Their noses bump, and then their mouths; and this time Diana is kissing her, really _kissing_ her, holding Mera's face between her hands and licking the curve of Mera's lip like she's greedy for it, sucking Mera's tongue into her mouth, the tug of it a hot jerk of sensation that pulls a sound from the back of Mera's throat.

"Please," she finds herself saying into Diana's mouth. "Please, please—"

"Shh," Diana says, soothing, drawing her along through the water. "Yes. _Yes_."

Mera feels coarse sand, the edges of rocks, beneath her feet. They stumble up only halfway onto the shore, sink down with a splash half in and half out of the water. They can't stop kissing; they're clumsy with it as they move, mouths parting and bumping and parting again, and then Mera is on her knees and Diana leans up into her and kisses her again.

"Wait," she says against Mera's cheek. "Wait, just—"

She moves beneath Mera, and there's a tearing sound. Her skirt, that narrow skirt: she rips it up one side with one quick tug, and then the other; spreads her thighs, now that she can, with a smug satisfied little sound.

"I still don't understand the clothes," she says with a laugh, and draws Mera down between her knees, and Mera reaches for those long strong thighs, skims her palms up them along the torn seams—can't stop herself, but luckily Diana doesn't seem to want her to, moving into her hands with a delighted sort of shiver.

And that's how it happens: right there on the shore, waves surging up against them, the scrape of sand and the rush of foam. It occurs to Mera, dimly, that she doesn't know exactly where they are, or whether there's a danger anyone will happen across them; but if there is, it doesn't seem to bother Diana.

She doesn't even try to remove the scalesuit, which is good, because Mera isn't sure she could stand to take the time—to peel her hands off Diana long enough to do it.

The urgency feels overwhelming, at first. As if now that Mera's decided to do this, she has to get it done before it can be noticed and taken from her, and the proper order of the universe restored. She holds Diana down against the rocks, kisses her and kisses her and presses a thigh high between her legs, rolls it against her; and if Diana's uncomfortable she doesn't show it. She has a hand clasped at the nape of Mera's neck, fingers tangling through Mera's dripping hair, and the other skims down Mera's shoulder, the side of her throat—traces the curve of Mera's breast through the scalesuit, so light and teasing a touch that Mera can do nothing but shudder beneath it.

And she kisses back, but—slower. Moves the hand at Mera's nape to her jaw, thumb at the corner of her mouth: catching at her bottom lip, tugging it down a little, the better to kiss her deeper, harder, more thoroughly. As if to say, without words, _slow down, slow down; no need to rush_.

Mera allows herself to be convinced, by degrees. Not that it's difficult, when there's so much of Diana laid out before her to explore, so much she wants to do. She grasps blindly for the end of Diana's neat braid and tugs the tie loose, the better to slide her hand into the smooth wet mass of it and pull tight—and when she does, Diana's back arches beneath her, Diana's hips jerking against her, and she swallows the sound Diana makes with delight.

But in the end it's still over much too soon. It takes her by surprise, even. She's thinking of nothing but Diana: the way Diana's breath has grown ragged in her throat, the urgent way her thigh has started to tense beneath Mera's palm, the small uneven noises she's making. But she doesn't realize she's lost track of one of Diana's hands until the heel of it is pressed right where Diana's thigh was a moment ago—and Diana rocks it there once, twice, and Mera _has_ to press into it, can't not; gasps and shudders and presses her open mouth to the line of Diana's throat—

The bright hot crest of it takes what feels like forever to fade, Diana's hand moving in such perfect rhythm with the echoes of it that Mera can hardly bear it. She's still shivering with the last little ripples when she realizes exactly how easy it will be to even the score. Because Diana isn't wearing a scalesuit, and Mera can follow the line of her thigh underwater up beneath her ripped skirt, can tug the cloth underneath out of the way and slide one finger, two, right in.

"_Oh_," Diana says against her jaw, breathless, delighted. "Oh, oh—Mera—_Mera_—"

And she's already so close, Mera realizes belatedly, that it isn't going to take much at all. So close, so _wet_, and Mera kisses her, bites into the sweet soft curve of her mouth. Twists her own fingers inside Diana, rubs and presses deep; and Diana clenches tight around them and cries out, and comes apart beneath her.

They lie together on the shore for a while, after. Kissing, and touching. Mera apologetically washes all the sand out of Diana's loose hair, while Diana laughs and teases her for her impatience; combs it out with her fingers, and braids it back up for her, one careful twist at a time, long strands clinging to her damp knuckles.

But they can't stay here forever. Wayne will notice their absence soon, if he hasn't already; and Arthur will be here in the morning, and there's so much he doesn't know, so much they need to do to have any hope of stopping Orm.

"Mera," Diana says.

Mera looks up. She went quiet, stayed silent too long, and of course Diana noticed.

"Mera," Diana says again, and touches her cheek gently. "I don't know what's going to happen, or how your quest will end. But I will think of you, and however long it takes for us to see each other again, I promise you this will not be the last time."

Mera closes her eyes and leans in, presses her temple to Diana's. "Won't it?"

"No," Diana murmurs into her ear, sure and steady. "No, it won't. Even if you never wish to come to the surface again—" and she pulls back just a little, just far enough to smile that bright sweet smile. "You may have noticed: I am a very good swimmer."


End file.
